Category: Gardening

new year caturday

whbeebe1 Comment
Joan Jet in her zen position on the patio.

New Years Eve was another traumatic event for all my little guys. As usual the neighbors set off their purchased fireworks, starting almost as soon as it got dark, and continued past midnight. I have a lot of little visitors snuggling in next to me while all the booms echoed through the neighborhood. When the festivities ended they slowly moved off to their regular sleeping spots for the rest of the evening.

The morning and the day were spent with everyone in the household napping and resting in general. They were all happy for the quiet of the day as well as the very pleasant sunny day. It hit 80°F today, not bad for the first of January. Everyone was outside of the house and around our screen-enclosed lanai (patio). I have discovered that the cats in particular are quite content to stay within the enclosed area, as long as they can go out and watch what’s happening on the outside of the screen. And that’s fine by me, as it keeps the cats from roaming around the neighborhood and considerably reduces their chances to pick up parasites such as heartworm.

Danï stayed up too late last night…
…as did her sister Zoë
Luke is on the lookout for lizards and squirrels, and perhaps a few of the birds
Sweet Ruby certainly enjoyed the day

Finally one from the garden. The hibiscuses have been blooming again, along with my azaleas and some other flowing plants. That means getting out in the garden pronto to get things weeded and replanted.

Everything taken with the 75mm on the Pen F.

strolling through the garden

whbeebe3 Comments






Modest flower photos from my garden. Some of them taken in the morning, the last in the evening before the sun finally set. The common thread to all is the way the light plays on them, or through them. Jewel-like colors everywhere these days.

My garden is now another pleasure of retirement. Since I can’t go visit public gardens such as Orlando’s Leu Gardens ( https://www.leugardens.org ) I’ve been trying to create a little of the magic in my backyard. My wife and I go and purchase flowers that we then try to plant in our back yard. Most of the time they make it, but sometimes they manage to die on me. The primary goal is to plant as many butterfly and hummingbird attracting flowers as possible, and then nurture them along to keep them as healthy as possible.

I’ve also started to put bird feeders up around the garden. I have a large one that I can’t seem to keep the squirrels off of, and I keep threatening to bring it back in the garage to get rid of the squirrels. The two smaller ones seem to be squirrel proof, and the birds are always flying in to feed. We have at least two cardinal pairs in our yard now, and I see other smaller birds eating in them as well. The larger feeder is staying for the time being, as the squirrels will fall off eventually and then the smaller birds swoop in for a bite.

Another common thread is these are all out of camera JPEGs. To quote Marc Beebe, RAW files “are for people who have way too much time on their hands. A camera should be able to produce an acceptable image without any processing.” ( https://marcbeebe.wordpress.com/2020/05/06/the-x10-factor/ ) I agree. I don’t have time to screw with tweaking RAW files from any camera any more. Take a little extra time and get it correct in the camera.